Monthly Archives: July 2012

As much as who should and should not be married and to how many people at any one time continues to be a debate in North American society, no one seems anymore to care about whether or not marriage is a useful institution and if it is, is it healthy? I am not sure why this is the case, but I expect it is because, … MORE »

There are times in life when all our tasks, our plans, and our peculiar occupations take a back seat to our fundamental humanness and the deep questions of life that we all share. This past weekend we at Cardus were brought face-to-face with one of those moments. The news of the drowning death of Kenton Van Pelt, the 15-year-old son of our president Michael Van … MORE »

A sea monster is rising from the black, oil slick lagoon of the Caspian Sea. Discoveries of oil reserves are sparking an arms race between Russia, Iran, and several former Soviet Republics. Russia and Kazakhstan are holding joint military operations. The Moskovsky Komsomolets published a map outlining defensive positions against an attack from Iran. Oil wars are getting hot, and these autocracies are just warming … MORE »

Can the shape or condition of a room change you? I have a hunch that most of us think of our buildings as inert shells. They might be pretty or ugly places, but they don’t any power to change us. They’re just there; we, the humans, are the actors. Rooms are places where we change our shirts, shorts, and sheets. They are places where we … MORE »

My Cardus colleague Josh Reinders makes a brilliant argument in yesterday’s blog for literature’s powerful formative role in creating a culture of saving grace. In this morning’s Globe and Mail, columnist Lynn Crosbie takes the case a step deeper and challenges literary creators to respond with essential grace when their creations go damnably wrong. I have every confidence, given his self-evident perspicacity, that young Mr. … MORE »

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.—J.R.R. Tolkien We are a civilization of creators. … MORE »

The question regarding whether Christians who seek public office should be held to a higher standard or, to put it more bluntly, be vetted with greater suspicion and scrutiny than others arose in Alberta again this past weekend, following an interview given by Opposition Leader Danielle Smith to a lesbian website. In the interview with I Dig Your Girlfriend, Wildrose Party Leader Smith is reported … MORE »

Universities are in trouble. If it’s not student protests in debt-addled Quebec, it’s the sagging weight of joblessness and pragmatic cynicism under which post-secondary education suffers. For post-grads it gets even worse, especially if the humanities or social sciences are the end game. Funding at the federal level continues to be curtailed under a political culture in which, and I quote from a conservative convention, … MORE »

“Why is America the greatest country in the world?” a coed asks the assembled media pundits on season opener of HBO’s The Newsroom. Aaron Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award-winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network, and Moneyball. … MORE »

On the face of it, the Olympic Games are about merit. We are told that to achieve elite success in almost any task takes 10,000 hours of practice. That’s three to four hours a day, six days a week, every week for ten years. Combine that hard work with some physical and mental aptitude for a particular sport, and, so the argument goes, you too … MORE »